CC missing from gameplay

[guccmoney420]

Help!!!

I have a lot of custom content that I’ve downloaded from TSR as well as other places, all of it that I’ve accumulated over several months. The other day I clicked on the “run without cc” box to deal with other gameplay issues I was having. I reinstalled all my cc and my launcher says that everything is installed, but when I go to actually play, my cc is nowhere to be seen and in some of my worlds I get a “missing object error”. I’m really beat up on what to do as I’ve tried everything, uninstalling and reinstalling about a million times, clearing my caches, you name it. I can’t go back and reinstall from TSR because it is a lot of stuff to download that would take me weeks, maybe months to find again. Please help!!! I can’t play without my cc );

[puzzlezaddict]

@guccmoney420  That kind of sounds like a mess, sorry.  I take it you've unchecked the box to run without cc?  The next step would be deleting the five cache files in your TS3 game folder in Documents.  They should be deleted regularly anyway, and every time you quit while troubleshooting.  For reference, they are:

• CASPartCache.package
• compositorCache.package
• scriptCache.package
• simCompositorCache.package
• socialCache.package

If that alone doesn't help, try removing the most recently created .dbc file in DCCache.  These are bundled custom content, and the newest one may be corrupt.  The flies are numbered in order, with dcdb0.dbc (that's a zero) being the oldest.  Just move the highest-numbered one to your desktop, delete your cache files again, and test.

If that doesn't help either, let me know and we can go through some more detailed interventions.

[guccmoney420]

Thanks for the reply! Sorry I haven’t been able to troubleshoot again for a couple days cause work, but I removed all my caches, didn’t work, then went to my most recent .dbc (there were only five which sounds weird since I have a ton of cc downloaded, could that be an issue?) moved it to my desktop, deleted my caches, and started it up again, and still no change ):

[puzzlezaddict]

@guccmoney420  No worries about the delay; people test when they have time, and I respond when I see it.  By the way, it's normal that you'd only have 5 .dbc files.  They're bundled cc content, and the launcher only creates a new one when the one currently being used reaches about 200 MB.  So depending on the size of your cc files, you can fit quite a lot into one .dbc file.

One quick thing to check is whether TS3 is reading the game folder it should be.  This is simple: look at the last modified date on the file labeled deviceconfig.  It should match the last time you launched the game.  If it doesn't, you have a second game folder somewhere that TS3 is currently using.  You can search in File Explorer for the word "deviceconfig"; each game folder will have exactly one.  (This doesn't work on a Mac though, so let me know if you have one, and check iCloud storage for a second folder.)

If you do find a second game folder, please copy and paste the file path here.  It will show across the top of the File Explorer window.

If TS3 is in fact using the correct game folder, pull the entire thing out of Documents\EA and onto your desktop.  Open the launcher to spawn a clean folder, then copy dcdb0.dbc from DCCache in your old game folder into DCCache in your new folder.  Delete the five cache files, and open the launcher again and see what items are listed.  Then launch the game, load a new save, and check whether that cc appears.  If it does, you can set aside that .dbc bundle—you've confirmed that it's working.  Just put it somewhere else, out of the new game folder you're using to test.

Do the same thing for dcdb1.dbc, except change the 1 to a 0, or TS3 won't read it properly.  (Delete your cache files before launching the game again.)  This way you can check the .dbc bundles individually, and hopefully salvage most of them.

Let me know how it goes, and whether you still want to try to recover the missing cc.  Otherwise, you can copy over the rest of your content into the new game folder.  Do it in batches, testing each time to make sure everything loads correctly.  Leave the saves for last, after you've tested everything else.  Here's a list of all the files in your game folder, including descriptions of what you'd want to keep:

https://sims3.crinrict.com/en/2011/01/faq-user-files.html

[guccmoney420]

I have a Mac, when I opened the deviceconfig.log it doesn’t show me the date that it was modified so I’m not sure if there’s another file in the game it’s reading. 

When you say to pull the entire thing onto my desktop, do you mean the entire “The Sims 3” folder?

I looked into the link that you posted and noticed it said to not delete the original songs you put into the custom music file, which I did do unknowingly. Could that be connected to the issues I’m having with my CC?

[puzzlezaddict]

@guccmoney420  If you view deviceconfig in a Finder window sorted as a list, the date should be to the right of the file name.  Or you can right-click (or crtl-click) on the file and select Get Info; the last modified date will be the same thing.  Both dates should match the last time you launched the game—not opened the launcher but actually clicked Play.

Yes, drag your entire Sims 3 game folder out of Documents\Electronic Arts and onto your desktop.

I have no idea how custom music works, sorry.  I doubt it would affect cc though.  Still, the new game folder will refresh those entries, so you don't have to worry about it.

[guccmoney420]

@puzzlezaddict Thank you for clarifying. The date in the deviceconfig is accurate to when I last started up the game, so I went through and copied all of my dcdb.dbc into the fresh sims folder in the DCCache folder one by one and deleted my caches. And still, nothing. They won’t show up in game, they say they are downloaded and installed, but they will not show up.

I really want to figure this out since I’ve spent a lot of time downloading CC and built a lot of houses from scratch using CC and just can’t stand to lose it all.

[puzzlezaddict]

@guccmoney420  That is certainly weird.  It's common for one or two .dbc files to get corrupted, but all of them?  There are only two possibilities I can think of.  The first is that perhaps TS3 patched itself.  Did the launcher ask if you wanted to update recently?  If so, you may now have some outdated cc, and it's possible, although not likely, that this borked all your .dbc files.

The other is that you checked the box to run without custom content.  It's in the Installed Content tab, next to the Select All and Select None buttons.

If neither of these is the problem, it's worth temporarily disabling your iCloud storage, just to see it if helps.  The deviceconfig being current should eliminate the possibility, and so should your saves being available to load.  Still, this is easier than reinstalling everything, so why not test it.  Here are some screenshots of the relevant settings, in case it helps:

https://bluebellflora.com/2017/02/06/sims-3-and-sims-4-not-loading-save-games/

If none of this helps, let me know.  There are a couple of shortcuts that don't involve redownloading everything from scratch, although I don't know whether they'll work for you.

[guccmoney420]

@puzzlezaddict I haven’t had any update notifications recently and I check frequently.

I checked the box once while trying to fix another in-game issue, and that’s what started the problem, but it has been unchecked for every attempt I’ve made to get my cc back.

My computer is about 6 years old and I don’t use it for much other than playing the Sims, so I’m not logged into the cloud and I always have the WiFi turned off. Is it possible that iCloud is still running without me logged in?

[puzzlezaddict]

@guccmoney420  If you're not logged into your Apple account, there's no way iCloud could be running, since cloud storage is specific to an account, not a computer.

Just to make sure there isn't something else strange going on, delete the new game folder that you created (move any content you want to keep back to the old folder, or elsewhere) and open the launcher again to create another one.  Then go into Downloads inside the old game folder, right-click on one of the Sims3Packs that contains custom content, not store stuff, and select Copy.  Then right-click inside Downloads in the new game folder and select Paste.  You should now be able to install the pack in the new folder.  Test a new save to see if the content shows up, and let me know.